This page lets you edit the DNS records of any SiteWorx account hosted on your InterWorx Server. InterWorx defines a DNS zone as the set of DNS records for a domain, including NS records, A records, CNAME records, PTR records, TXT records and SOA records for a specific domain.

This menu can be accessed from NodeWorx ▷ System Services ▷ DNS Server ▷ Zones

An A Record points a hostname to an IPv4 address. This is the main record responsible for directing a browser’s hostname (human-readable) query to its IP address. This, in general should not be changed manually, as a correctly-configured InterWorx server will create the correct A record for all new domains.

An AAAA Record has the same purpose as an A record in pointing a hostname to an IP address, however, an AAAA record points a hostname to an IPv6 address, which will be the standard IP address system that was recently released and willl soon be the standard IP format for all domains in the future.

An NS Record states the authoritative nameserver for the zone. When a domain is registerred at a domain registrar, the registrar will ask for the authoritative nameservers for that domain. This should be set as the nameservers that serve your domain as set at the registrar.

A CNAME record, or Canonical Name record allows a domain to respond to more than one hostname. This is so that an end-user visting aliases such www.domain.com, mail.domain.com, or ftp.domain.com will be forwarded to the correct domain.com.

An MX Record states the mailserver for the zone. This is so that when a user sends uses his mail client to send an email to emailbox@domain.com that the email is sent to the correct mailserver for domain.com. An interesting feature of MX records is that they have a preference number from 0-65535 that indicates the order in which mailservers should attempted to be reached. Lower numbers have preference. The typical number for a main mailserver is 10 while redundant mailservers will be set to 20 or 30. This is there for historical reasons to make sure that users recieved their mail. In practice, however, most modern domains have no issue, and usually require only one MX record with a preference of 10.

A PTR record maps an IP back to a hostname. This is the “opposite” of an A record. The format of PTR records are a little strange; the octets of the IP address are reversed and .in-addr.arpa is added to the end. For example if the A record of example.com points to 12.34.56.78, the associated PTR record is 78.56.34.12.in-addr.arpa. Note that typically PTR records are handled by your ISP or data centers for security reasons including spam checking and guaranteeing that secure connections hit the correct IP. If this is the case, you must contact your ISP or data center to grant you control over your PTR records.

A TXT record holds various extra information about a zone. One common time one will encounter them is if you enable SPF, an anti-spam mechanism which provides authentication information about the server in a TXT record. TXT records can hold any arbitrary human-readable to be distributed over DNS.

The SOA record contains information that is required for all DNS zones that including source host, contact email, refresh time, retry time, expire time, and minimum TTL (time to live) for the zone. This is an advanced setting.

This is the template for default DNS records to be used when InterWorx creates a new SiteWorx account. This is useful so you, the server administrator, can count that DNS records will be created correctly anytime you create a new domain. This allows the server administrator to modify the default DNS records that are created with any new domain. Any reference to the template domain name (dns-template.com) will be replaced by the actual SiteWorx domain name. All references to the IP address 1.1.1.1 will be replaced by the actual SiteWorx IP address. All other hostnames and IPs will be left unchanged.

2.2.1.1 Configuration for a domain that has its own authoritative nameservers

For a domain that will have its own nameservers that will be the main page for your hosting company, say interworxhostingusa.com, you will want the following records, at a minumum. You will need two NS records, usually ns1.interworxhostingusa.com and ns2.interworxhostingusa.com, pointing to the authoritative nameservers as set at the registrar. Next, you will need an MX record, usually this will be mail.interworxhostingusa.com. CNAME records should also be included so that ftp.interworxhostingusa.com and www.interworxhostingusa.com will point to example.com. The two nameservers, ns1.interworxhostingusa.com, ns2.interworxhostingusa.com, the mailserver, mail.example.com, and example.com itself should all have A records that point to the domain’s IP address. It is also a good idea to include a PTR record of the form 56.45.34.12.in-addr.arpa (Note: when adding a PTR record, InterWorx will automatically reverse the octets and append them to include .in-addr.arpa when you enter the octets in the “normal” order. For example, adding a PTR record and entering 12.34.45.56 will cause InterWorx to automatically create a PTR record of the form 12.34.45.56.in-addr.arpa). Lastly, you must include an SOA record which will contain crucial data relating to how your DNS server communicates with others. InterWorx’s default settings are best, and only advanced users should change this.

2.2.1.2 Configuration for a domain that has uses another zone’s authoritative nameserver

If you run a main domain on your InterWorx server that is the front end to your hosting business, for example, interworxhostingusa.com with two nameservers, ns1.interworxhostingusa.com and ns2.interworxhostingusa.com and you have a new hosting customer who has registerred a domain, say, edsfancymoustachewax.com, the sample configuration will be a little different. When this client registers his domain, he should set his authoritative nameservers as ns1.interworxhostingusa.com and ns2.interworxhostingusa.com, two nameservers already present on your InterWorx server. You should set his DNS records as follows. You should set his two NS records to point to ns1.interworxhostingusa.com and ns2.interworxhostingusa.com. He should have an A record pointing edsfancymoustachewax.com to 12.34.45.56, an MX record pointing to mail.edsfancymoustachewax.com, at the very least two CNAME records pointing www.edsfancymoustachewax.com and ftp.edsfancymoustachewax.com to edsfancymoustachewax.com. The aliases, mail.edsfancymoustachewax.com and ftp.edsfancymoustachewax.com should have A records pointing to the IP 12.34.5.56. Similar to the earlier example, you should include an SOA record for this domain that includes the standard SOA information such information as contact information for the domain owner refresh times, and TTL (time to live times) for your DNS records.

2.2.1.3 Configuration for a domain that is not hosted on this InterWorx server

If you have multiple domains that are not hosted on this particular InterWorx server, you can add relevant records for that domain on the zones page provided that the domain owner has set the authoritative nameservers as ns1.interworxhostingusa.com and ns2.interworxhostingusa.com at the registrar. Your InterWorx server will handle DNS queries for said domain if you choose to manually add the records on the Zones page. This zone should have the same format for records as those provided in the prevvious example.

One you have DNS records created on the zones page, you can edit, delete, and view these records from the NodeWorx Zones page.